Blown Away documentary gives fresh look at night Cyclone Tracy struck

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Being in a huge cyclone that is destroying nearly everything in its path is something most people will never experience, but a new documentary may allow people to get a better feel for what it is like.

Blown Away is a major project for the 40th anniversary of Cyclone Tracy, using animation to reveal new perspectives on one of the worst natural disasters in Australia's history.

Producer Rachel Clements from Alice Springs brought the idea to co-producer James Bradley in Sydney.

Bradley said the pair worked together to pitch the idea to Screen Australia at a documentary conference in Adelaide last year.

"It's such an iconic Australian story of tragedy and survival. It's part of Australian myth really. Just like Gallipoli and other things like that. It's really ingrained in the Australian story," he said.

He said the animation was a key component to providing an insight into what people felt for the hours they were sheltering from the storm.

"It gives us the ability to interpret people's stories in a creative way but also to represent the terror of the cyclone and the power of the cyclone in a really, really gut-wrenching way," he said.

"When we were interviewing people and we started to hear their stories of what happened to them during the cyclone we thought you know, these are visually amazing stories but how are we going to tell them, how are we going to represent them?

"We didn't have the budget to do massive feature re-enactment, which is what we would've needed."

The animator of the documentary, Huni Bolliger, said it was a fascinating project to work on.

She researched the event and experimented with textures and colour palettes to create a dark mood that captured the terror people felt when the cyclone beared down on Darwin.

"Some of it's hand-painted, hand-drawn. A lot of it's digital and we even did some live action shooting as well so with characters and actors against a green screen."

Director and writer Danielle MacLean, from Darwin, said the story also touched on how Aboriginal people interpreted the cyclone.

"There is a story about Nungalinya - he's a protector spirit for Darwin - and his role in the cyclone," she said.

"And what was going on politically with Larrakia people at that time, their struggle for land and those sorts of things."

MacLean said it was a moving piece to direct.

"Some people have actually said 'this is the last time I want to talk about it' because there is that trauma and they don't necessarily want to go through this again," she said.

She said she was grateful survivors had been willing to share their stories with the team.

Screen Australia and Screen Territory have funded the project, as well as the ABC.

The documentary premieres in Darwin tonight, and will be aired on ABC 1 at 8:30pm on December 23.